No Respect for Native Rules

"To write every word in correct rhaswas and dirghas, I'm not a Nepali professor after all", many youths and adults tell this sentence when someone tries to correct some spellings in their Nepali writings. So – does one need to be a Nepali professor to write Nepali correctly? If yes, given that most of us try to make our English spellings as correct as possible, why have not we been English professors yet?

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Author and journalist Sharat Chandra Wastiwrites, "The national language should have become stronger day by day, but this is not the case due to extreme ignorance and an impulse toward fashion. On the one hand are those risen to senior positions and highly educated who feel proud, not shy, to say "I don't know Nepali much". On the other hand are those involved in language-related professions who take linguistic incompetence for their pride by saying "Do I need to learn Nepali? Whatever I write is Nepali." The general user lies confused between these two poles" (IX). It shows that Nepali population has been too much ignorant about correct use of own language. And, this can be best seen in spellings of Nepali words in Nepali (Devnagari) script they write.

There lie many diverse reasons for people's ignorance toward Nepali spelling rules. People are ignorant of Nepali spelling rules partly due to westernisation, prestige issues, technological difficulties and partly the problems are in the grammarians themselves.

Nepali society has been apparently westernised today, at least in urban educational systems. Parents value good learning of English for their children, whereas they allow the kids to ignore Nepali linguistic rules. Many among ten informants consulted before writing this essay attributed their carelessness to the education they have received. "I was introduced to English speaking environment at tender age. These days, only five percent of my talk happens in Nepali. If such is the case, obviously people tend to ignore rules", says Shiva Dhital, an International Baccalaureate student now in Kolkata. For Ramesh Subedi, an MBS student in Kathmandu too, the case applies: "Writing in Nepali is very tough for us from the school days. We just had only one subject in Nepali language, Nepali itself. Sorry to say that I have almost forgotten Nepali rhaswas (short vowels) and dirghas (long vowels) today."

Such phenomenon in education corresponds to values and requirements in the job market. For Dronashish Neupane, a TV newsreader in Kathmandu, the ignorance of Nepali spelling rules is due to the high value correct English usage has received today, which Nepali correctness has never got. He thinks, "An error in English might raise question over their qualification, but an error in Nepali doesn't. English has been dominant all over the world and Nepali is not an exception." Anisha Bhattarai from Kathmandu, who writes for an informational web bossnepal.com, thinks that Nepali lacks the quality of universality which English has. Thus, people become more cautious to learn and apply English rules than Nepali. Shiva also has calculated it, "As once you master English, you can communicate to majority of foreign people. But if you master Nepali, people don't really see much benefit of it."

Another quality that many people from the new generation think Nepali lacks and English has is social prestige – and the issue has been seen much influential in urban youths. "We feel that knowing English more properly than Nepali is having prestige", SagunShresth, a teacher of English concluded his remark based on his observation of both Nepali and English usage. (Sagun's remark asserts credibility for he teaches English at a couple of higher secondary schools in Kathmandu, and also has written and published about a dozen of Nepali stories.) Manoj Tapasvi, a journalist from east of Nepal, Jhapa agrees on it. He says, "Possibly people have been ignoring rules of Nepali spellings in the name of making it 'modern'. Besides, it is similar in the case of Nepalese attraction to the overall western culture." Urban teens and youths think that using English words in conversation is means of earning more prestige. And such unregulated use of English words in Nepali conversation has certainly led them to ignore Nepali spellings.

A TV journalist in Kathmandu, LomashChapagain sees media's role in such trend. "Media should have played a role to correct language errors. But, in reality, the opposite is happening. Many broadcasters ignore spellings and pronunciations; and they make the language broken", he says.

Besides broadcast media, social media are seen more responsible because social media depends on computer technology and Nepali is not much techno-friendly, people say. Alaka Aatreya Chudal, a Nepali writer, writes, "We suffer because there is no any universal font for Devnagari script. We have Unicode, which is based on alphabet structures; on the other hand, we have different-named fonts like Preeti, Kantipur, Sumod" (7). She explains that different fonts have different keys for the same alphabet. Thus, if one changes the font, the alphabets change. For this reason, many Nepali youths who are good in English typing do not know how to type Nepali alphabets.

For Nina Maharjan, a Nepali social worker now working in Pune, India, writing Nepali on the Internet has been a great problem. Nina, who generally pays high attention to correctness of spelling, syntax and pronunciation, finds it difficult to maintain that correctness with present technologies. "On the Internet, I cannot write whatever I want. Of course I can do them with the fonts like Preeti; but I have to change them in Unicode for posting on the Internet. And, that change distorts my correct spellings." Thus, she also suggests that the wrong spellings on the web might be due to technologies, but not due to ignorance or intentions. Further, typing the text in a different file, copying it on another page to change into Unicode and posting it on the web is a complicated process; thus people prefer English as far as online is concerned. Thus, as much as people become more techno-friendly, they are liable to forget Nepali spellings. Ramesh says, "Chatting on the Facebook or writing an email, we do all in English. Even if we use Nepali, we only use Nepali words written with Roman alphabets, in which spellings do not count."

Some people think that it is natural to ignore rules of mother tongue and attract oneself to foreign languages. They view that one needs not learn mother tongue's grammatical rules, and thus they are more liable to make grammatical errors in mother tongues. Without any learning, people can communicate in their mother tongues thus they don't bother anymore about spellings of words of the language. It is a universal phenomenon. The Queen's English Society (QES) found in 1997-98 that among the undergraduate students studying in Britain, British students have higher error level in English spellings (40%) than that of foreign students (24%).  QES also remarks that "the overseas students have generally had more grammar teaching, more correction of errors, and more emphasis on correctness than have the British students…" Thus, it is not surprising that Nepali students too happen to make many errors on their own language. DeepakGhimire, a Health and Environment teacher in mid-Terai Nepal, Nawalparasi says, "It's natural that we ignore and even disrespect what's near to us, but embrace what is farther."

All the problems discussed so far are on the user sides. On the grammarians' side too, there is a great problem that has discouraged Nepali language users to ignore spelling rules: There is no uniformity among grammarians on many spellings of the words. Many of them concern with the use of rhaswa/dirgha (short/long) vowels and some other similar sounds that are different in writing (for example:'s'). "If one dictates a paragraph to write to some senior linguists, one can see apparent that they have diversity in writing. Due to this problem, spellings in a Nepali professor's writings get changed by any other Nepali teacher, editor, journalist, typist and proofreader" (Pokharel 6). Arjun Apabad, a radio journalist in mid-hill Nepal, Dolakha claims, "The problem is due to linguists than the users. The problem is created due to the different rules the linguists impose at different times."

Thus even if one becomes a Nepali professor, s/he cannot ensure that s/he is right; and the general public too cannot depend on him/her. Many issues involve there in a small 'rhaswa' or 'dirgha' mark: ranging from politics to globalisation. Thus, it is not easy to make everyone respect spelling rules of Nepali. It is difficult, yet it is possible. If individual users commit themselves for respect of rules of their respectable mother tongue and so do the grammarians, Nepali as a language can get recongnised as a standard, if not universal, language equal to English. 

Works Cited

Apabad, Arjun. "Re: Request." Email to the author. 25 Mar. 2013.

Bhattarai, Anisha. "Re: Request." Email to the author. 29 Mar. 2013.

Chapagain, Lomash. "Re: Request." Email to the author. 27 Mar. 2013.

Chudal, Alaka Aatreya. "Nepali Hijje Ra Aadhunik Prabidhi". Kantipur 24 Apr. 2012: 7.

Dhital, Shiva. "Re: Request." Email to the author. 27 Mar. 2013.

Ghimire, Deepak. "Re: Request." Email to the author. 31 Mar. 2013.

Maharjan, Nina. "Re: Request." Email to the author. 26 Mar. 2013.

Neupane, Dronashish. "Re: Request." Email to the author. 27 Mar. 2013.

Pokharel, Madhav Prasad. "Nepali Hijjeka Samasya Ra Sthayi Samadhan". Gorkhapatra 2 Apr. 2012: 6.

The Queen's English Society. Spelling Standard of Undergraduates. The Queen's English Society. 31 Mar. 2013 .

Shresth, Sagun. "Re: Request." Email to the author. 26 Mar. 2013.

Subedi, Ramesh. "Re: Request." Email to the author. 26 Mar. 2013.

Tapasvi, Manoj. "Re: Request." Email to the author. 26 Mar. 2013.

Wasti, Sharat Chandra. Preface. Hamro Bhasha. 2^nd ed. Kathmandu: Ekta Prakashan, 2011. IX.